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What are the main differences between spoken and written English grammar? To what extent and in what circumstances is it appropriate to teach ‘spoken grammar’? Make use of relevant literature in your answer.
Introduction
Spoken grammar provides learners with grammatical choices to create utterances which can provide a deeper interactive and interpersonal use of language. (McCarthy & Carter, 1997).It is spontaneous and transient. However, it is still struggling under the burden of grammatical metalanguage inherited from writing, leading to a notable loss of its natural and informal qualities. Meanwhile, the development of technology forces us to consider conversation and spoken grammar deeply. Nowadays thanks to the advent of computer software and some sound recording technologies, spoken grammar can be analyzed and transcribed faithfully as a corpus. Corpus is a principled collection of texts stored in a computer and is always transcribed and stored for purposes and specific types such as businesses (Carter, 2003). However, there were a hundred million written grammar words for storing only ten million words of spoken grammar. Issues affecting the development of corpus include the difficulty of finding participants and transcribing content. In their research, Goh (2009) and Shin (2007) independently identify the evolution of the English language as another issue. Although the corpus data exists in its inequality, this essay stresses the importance of spoken grammar in the following sections. Based on this short introduction and the following historical foundation, the main purposes can better explore the differences between spoken and written grammar and discuss the implications and appropriate circumstances to teach spoken grammar from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives.
Background of Spoken Grammar
Spoken grammar has experienced a long period from decline to the revival. Firstly, It has originated from the demand of people want to speak. Then it has developed prosperously in the travel around Europe in late 17th to early 19th, and this travel is called Grand Tour. Many young British people communicated with gentlemen around the world in Latin to learn about different cultures. At that time, what they learned in school is spoken Latin, which is the spoken grammar. For example, Vulgaria is the Latin they learned in school. It means common and ordinary things as opposed to classic literature. (McCarthy & Carter 2017). Students spoken Latin for their ‘real-life’ and suggested students spoken Latin on school premises. (McCarthy & Carter 2017, Pendergast 2006:72). In Playing the lord: Tudor Vulgaria and the rehearsal of ambition described the atmosphere in the classroom rehearsals the self-advancement and the entertainment of learning Latin. These records the situation that people raised high awareness of using spoken grammar and enjoyed it. However, spoken grammar was probably influenced by some grammarians like Lowth and Harris. According to McCarthy & Carter (2017), spoken grammar was possibly targeted by the later formed trend towards prescriptivism and explicit proscriptions (they formed an explicit rule that people should not use spoken grammar) because spoken grammar is not in a correct and elegant expression. Prescriptivism refers to the practices where correct and incorrect use of language or specific linguistic items are laid down by rules externally imposed on the user of the language. Explicit proscriptions are also based on creating rules on forbidden use of items or certain formulas in language. According to Lowth (1762/1799:103), he stated that the familiar styles of speaking grammar such as ellipsis and fronting can prevail in common conversation but cannot be suitable to the solemn style because it omitted the relatives and over-focused on the familiar styles. Prescriptivism has seriously influenced the development of grammar in the following centuries. The authority of grammar is almost always along with written conventions, although it has always been mentioned in speaking.
Then the status of spoken grammar has changed. The development, such as the broadcasting and recording technology and the international commerce in the 20th century, along with the thinking of language study, spoken grammar has been re-asserted because of its importance in description and pedagogy. Many grammarians re-stressed the spoken grammar. Henry Sweet (1899) stated that teaching language should be in accordance with the principles ‘starting from the spoken rather than the literacy language.’ He pointed out the importance of chunk and clusters because it has characteristics like ellipsis and disconnections; however, they are always neglected in pedagogy because they are difficult to bring in the conventional grammar system. (Sweet 1899:121-169). In the latter 20th century, the advent of corpora such as London-Lund Corpus of spoken English and other corpora developed and collected a majority of spoken data for different purposes like business. These data resulted in an explosion of publications demonstrating the features of spoken grammar, especially for daily conversation. The corpus investigations into various chunks in the daily spoken language provided a large amount of data basis for the research of spoken grammar and forced people to re-think the spoken grammar of ordinary people as opposed to the written grammar of writers. In Chapter 2, the essay provides a relatively complete background of spoken grammar. With a preliminary understanding of spoken grammar, the essay will focus on analyzing the differences between spoken and written grammar (chapter 3).
The Main Differences between Spoken Grammar and Written Grammar
Many grammarians have provided definitions of spoken and written grammar. One of the definitions is that, according to Horowitz and Samuel (1987), written grammar is typically associated with materials such as course books, some prose, and classic literature. It is formal and academic. This section will discuss several differences that will influence the teaching approaches and the purposes in the teaching process.
3.1 The Functional Difference
The fundamental difference between spoken grammar and written grammar is that spoken grammar focuses on fluency. However, written grammar focuses on accuracy. Written grammar consists of grammar rules for writing academic styles, such as punctuation and verb tenses. In many written grammar book such as Essential Grammar in Use provided a variety of written grammar to teach. Written grammar is prepared for demonstrating accuracy and preciseness. Meanwhile the fluency spoken grammar stresses on is the consistency of conversation which means people can communicate with each other smoothly. They use spoken grammar to understand what people say and provide appropriate response. It is not like monologue or a speech. However, usually, testing the speaker’s fluency, schools, or teachers will provide some oral exams or allow the speaker to talk about a topic for one or two minutes. The typical examples like PTE, IELTS, and TEFOL, provide a topic for students to test their oral speaking. In fact, this can hardly show the consistency of conversation because people seldom communicate with each other. Take PTE as an example, learners speak towards a computer without any feedback. All they do is more like a monologue which lasts about 2 hours. When learners participate in IELTS, they always need to speak for 3-4 minutes until examiners interrupt them. Most of time, the examiners are listening and giving scores while the interviewees are speaking, however they won’t judge their oral speaking directly and provide real help. According to McCarthy (1995), this kind of oral test cannot represent how natural conversation is demonstrated in our daily lives. People in these tests possibly might not perform like they talk in their daily life because of several reasons such as the topic he/she does not interested in, the person he/she does not familiar with, anxiety or other emotions. The fluency of spoken grammar is expressing the same meaning of the word flow, which comes from the word fluo ray in Latin. Fluency means to speak like flowing on a river. It means to have a conversation smoothly. People can talk with other people with spoken grammar. However nowadays many oral tests always test the ability of monologue like presentations instead of communicating with others fluently. And this concept is based on McCarthy (1995), he claimed that it is a fundamental element of fluency to show the ability to bridge the conversation by understanding what the topic discusses and hooking the subordinate clause onto the previous speaker.
Meanwhile, the functional difference should be taken into consideration when syllabus designers select the content for language teaching. On the one hand, a syllabus for oral class should naturally be composed of spoken grammar, which improves learners’ ability to speak fluently and confidently in the target language. For example, setting typically daily communication scenarios for students to complete dialogue in English. It should be emphasized on students’ ability to naturally and emotionally express themselves in real conversations with appropriate words accompanied by facial expression as native speakers always do in their conversations. On the other hand, for written grammar, the materials and syllabus should be chosen for improving writing skills, which should consist of grammatical rules such as tense. In accordance with the functions of spoken grammar and written grammar, the courses should contain different materials and methods to meet the purposes in the class.
3.2 The Difference in Lexical Selection
Some grammarians discussed in the literature the differences between spoken and written grammar. Carter and McCarthy (1995) stated that many words are frequently used in speaking; however, they are either absent from writing or less commonly used in writing. For example, according to Shin (2007), he collected around 10,000,000 running words from the British National Corpus. What he found is that the most frequent two words phrase is you know in speaking in English. This means that about twelve thousand examples of you know in a corpus of five million words.
However, according to his findings, based on several written corpus including the Brown corpus, the Wellington Written (WWC), and the British National Corpus, the frequency of you know in written language is about only 0.03 times as often as the spoken grammar. Which means you know is used in only 3 sentences out of 10,000 written sentences. Therefore, the lexical choice of spoken and written grammar is quite different. you know is quite often used in spoken grammar, but is not as frequent as used in written grammar. Another example is that people change the word say in spoken grammar to other words like declare, confirm and state because many course books such as Cambridge grammar of English suggested learners to use these words in academic styles to show their preciseness and authority. Therefore, in teaching spoken grammar, the materials should be selected, like mainly containing spoken grammar since it is always served for listening class to comprehend the context because it is more effective for learners to process the information in a shorter time. On the contrary, a larger proportion of grammatical items in the listening materials may allow students to prepare for a relatively long time to read the context. Therefore, the difference in lexical selection provides thinking of audio materials when teachers teach language.
3.3 The Difference in Syntactic Structure
Another difference between spoken and written grammar is the syntactic structure. In the field of written grammar, the articles should basically contain complete sentences in the academic style. However, in real conversation, the distinct characteristic of spoken grammar is incomplete syntactic structures and short clauses. Which is often called conversational sentence structure. According to Yan (2014), people cannot understand ellipsis (short clauses) like some more? Another one? She said that it still needs environmental clues to let people know easily. When people sitting around table, someone pass you the bread and said some more? The main reason is that the immediate social and interpersonal situation often influences spoken language. Besides, it must be occurred in real-time and tends to be unplanned. According to Carter & McCarthy (2006), it is called situational ellipsis (short clauses). For example, some short sentences like Some more? Ready yet? Hammer, please. When someone is concentrating on his own job, he might speak like hammer please to other person. The person will give the hammer to the speaker. The whole process is called situational ellipsis because all the conversations take place in their situations. People usually say what they need to say, nevertheless, it will be pedantic (people will think it is unrealistic and unnatural). Ellipsis, in the traditional meaning, is leaving out or omitting things that should be there. (Carter & McCarthy 2006). Although hammer please cannot be viewed as a complete sentence, it does not express a different meaning from the original message or confuse other people. Because the ellipsis (short clauses, incomplete sentences) happened in the situation, people elaborate meanings for the ellipsis and complete the whole conversation according to the present situation. This is the incomplete syntactic structure in which written grammar does not involve. When people write texts, they elaborate and complement the sentences to understand no matter where they are or when they read. Therefore, written texts need complete sentences to support the authors’ meaning. This is also one of the main difference.
The circumstances and reasons of teaching spoken grammar
In this section, this essay will, based on English learning situation in China, provide two circumstances of teaching and learning spoken grammar and theoretical reasons for teaching spoken grammar which can show its value and significance in language teaching.
4.1 Circumstance 1 and Its Reasons to Teach Spoken Grammar
4.1.1 Circumstance 1
Learners have mastered written grammar and usually have the ability to write in academic style, however, they might possibly be weak in everyday communication. Because many of them might not use English to communicate in their daily life. According to Goh (2009), a research in a high senior school in China showed that many students always complain that they have difficulty to communicate in English, however, their listening, reading and writing skills are not as weak as speaking. Based on this situation, Spoken grammar might be appropriately taught through combing different communicative tasks such as cultural access tasks, noticing tasks, language discussion tasks to help learners understand and interact with spoken grammar. For example, the cultural access task provides some context of the target language. Teachers can ask learners about the advantages and disadvantages of living in the place. Such task aims to help learners relate the texts of the target language to their own culture.
There are three main reasons for teaching spoken grammar under this circumstance. Firstly, teaching spoken grammar is providing an environment for students to speak in English. Based on the functional difference between spoken grammar and written grammar(chapter 3), students might cannot only study written grammar and unconsciously improve their spoken grammar. When participating communicative tasks, students improve the ability to communicate with others in English and discuss different topics. It will let students understand the purpose of teaching spoken grammar which is to communicate smoothly. Conversation in class is not like a monologue. Learners should complete both listen and provide response.
Secondly, it is also important to let learners understand how to use spoken grammar by learning the features of spoken grammar. Like learning written grammar, learners will know how to speak fluently when they have the lesson. Then they will understand the feature of spoken grammar result in communicating smoothly. For example, there is a feature of spoken grammar called co-construction. It is based on the article written by McCarthy (cited in Clancy & McCarthy 2015 and Tao & McCarthy 2001), and it means doing things together. It is very common for learners to complete a long sentence naturally by several people in a conversation because someone will complementary your words and let the sentences become more meaningfully. For example, student A said: Chinese people have many customs to celebrate their spring festival. student B replied: because it’s one of the most important festivals in a year. Student C said: Yeah, such as giving red pocket. The whole conversation includes some complete sentences which have some main clauses and subordinate clauses like which clauses. Meanwhile, they are created by three students, and it is prevalent in spoken language. According to (McCarthy 2001), co-construction means that spoken language facilitates interpersonal bonding because it is a social action that will unconsciously help one person bond with another. Moreover, it enables the negotiation of meanings. In (Clancy & McCarthy 2015), the negotiation meaning is that human has to search out what the speaker talking about and try to respond by negotiating. It shows the fluency in the whole conversation; namely, people can connect their clauses to the previous speaker. Based on the learning of co-construction, Learners might can complement with each other in a conversation.
Thirdly, it can also arouse the interest of students to talk in English. For students who are in China and other Asian countries have rare opportunity to speak in English because they might do not have the language environment. When they go home, the dominant language is still Chinese. According to Timmis (2005), spoken grammar teaching will be more reasonable in the natural conversation and engage students’ interest. Therefore, we need to create more opportunity for learners to use English and help them arouse interests on it.
4.1.2 Circumstances 2
Apart from students who are weak at speaking in English, another situation is students cannot speak out confidently without over-thinking the sentence structures. According to Goh (2009), L2 learners are bound to sound bookish without using spoken grammar features. Some students even consider that the way of speaking sounds ridiculous because it is like a TV announcer. According to the research of Goh (2009), many teachers found a misconception among Chinese learners, which should construct perfect sentences modeled after written language. They may always over-think the sentence structure, which prevents the communicating process. Based on this circumstance, teaching spoken grammar is appropriate to teach. Here are some reasons. Firstly, learning spoken grammar can provide a space for people to think and organize the sentences. This also will help them communicate naturally not like a TV announcer. For learners who might be easy to feel stressful when they have to communicate with people in English, they need to learn spoken grammar to let them pause a few minutes for thinking and continue the topic. For example they always use you know as fillers to pause a few seconds to think and continue speak. In Shin (2007), you know is one of the most common hesitation forms. It can push the topic for the next thought. If there are no fillers, what can fill the moment of silence? It is a possibly essential element for pushing the conversation without embarrassment. Meanwhile it is quite common to see people do some fillers when people are in an oral test. Recent research at Columbia University (Timmis & Bienvenu 2011) has found a number of data showed that foreign speakers use fillers to pauses when in the IELTS and TOEFL. To investigate the idea, they counted and compared the number of filler words used by various speakers. Then they found the conclusion that fillers such as you know, well, I was wondering can help cope with the time limitation for searching the words. Take my classmates as examples, my classmates always pause the topic by ummm… well… to organize the sentences in their minds and speak confidently.
Secondly, learning spoken grammar possibly can learn how to express their meaning more politely instead of performing like a machine without any emotions. There is another feature of spoken grammar which is its tense-aspect system. The choice of tense refers to time, which mainly is four tense: present, past, present continuous, and past continuous tense. Learners can communicate more naturally when they learned the tense-aspect of spoken grammar. It is based on the theory of McCarthy (1995). An example of a tense-aspect system is the usage of say. In the section of reported speech in many course books, there are lots of practice like Tony says we are going for a picnic. Furthermore, learners should change it like: Tony said they were going for a picnic. According to Carter & McCarthy (2006), the corpus records that what people use hundreds of times are not Tony said, but Tony was saying. This means they use past continuous form to report people to say. Another example of the tense-aspect system of spoken grammar is that I was wanting to book a room. From the perspective of many native speakers I wanted to book a room does not exist any grammar mistakes. According to the grammar book Essential Grammar in Use (2016), pointed out that was doing can express a sense of distance by demonstrating the politeness which done cannot express. This can also show the importance of spoken grammar to demonstrate speakers’ politeness and relations. If learners can use right tense, they might speak more native and politely.
Finally, here is a report to show the support of teaching spoken grammar in China. Many teachers in China has gradually raised higher awareness to teach spoken grammar. According to another research of Goh (2000), in China, 87% of Chinese teachers consider that learning spoken grammar is useful and essential because the characteristics of spoken grammar can meet the learning purpose of most language learners, which is to communicate as fluently as a native speaker.
Therefore, it is appropriate to teach spoken grammar with various communicative tasks to learners who lack ability to communicate in target language. A teacher interviewed in Goh (2009) stated that spoken grammar reveals an authentic picture of language use to students, a world full of incomplete sentences, phrases, vague language, discourse markers, etc. It also proves that spoken grammar should be taught in more familiar way. Moreover, teaching spoken grammar for L2 learners are useful and essential. Although there are some concerns about how to teach spoken grammar have not been solved based on different teaching situations, the next section will provide some suggestions to teach spoken grammar.
4.2 Suggestions of Teaching Spoken Grammar
There are some suggestions from the perspectives of teachers and learners. On one side, to maximize the benefits of spoken grammar, teachers should attempt their teaching of spoken grammar under the linguistic and social environment. According to Timmis (2005), native speakers are habitual users of English for all communicative purposes like negotiating and learning. However, learners can use proper methodologies to improve their spoken English as native speakers by staying in a native speaker environment. On the other side, the learner should practice more by communicating in English to reinforcing the features and create better interaction with other people. Besides, they should distinguish what is for spoken and what is for writing.
Conclusion
This essay has mainly provided some main differences between written and spoken grammar: Spoken grammar focuses on fluency while written grammar stresses accuracy. Spoken grammar is prone to use different lexis from written grammar. It is plausible for spoken grammar to occur incomplete sentences which are not allowed to appear in written grammar. This essay has stressed the significance of teaching spoken grammar and provided the relevant connections between the features and the implications of learning spoken grammar such as co-construction, tense-aspect system and fillers. The fluency concept can help learners speak more naturally; meanwhile, fillers reduce anxiety and encourage learners to speak in English. Besides, the essay has suggested teaching by some task-based approaches, for example, culture across tasks for learners to consider and understand the target language’s culture. However, the main problem should not be neglected, for teachers, the use of methodologies which should be carefully applied to an appropriate linguistic and social environment. Besides, learners should practice more to familiarize themselves with spoken grammar features to communicate in English.
References
Carter, R. (2003) The grammar of talk: spoken English, grammar and the classroom
in New Perspectives on Spoken English in the Classroom. London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English: A
Comprehensive Guide. Spoken and Written Grammar and Usage. Cambridge University Press.
Carter, R. & M, McCarthy. (1997) Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Clancy, B. & McCarthy, M (2015). ‘Co-constructed turntaking’in K. Aijmer and C.Ru
‘Hlemann (eds): Corpus Pragmatics:A Handbook’. Cambridge University Press, pp 819-65.
Goh, C. (2009) Perspective on Spoken Grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horowitz, R& Samuels, S. (1987) Comprehending oral and written language. Bingley,
England: Emerald Group.
Lowth, R. (1762/1799). A short introduction to English Grammar, ed. R. Aitken.
McCarthy, M. & R. Carter. (1995) What is spoken grammar and how should we teach
it?. ELT Journal 49/3: 207–17.
McCarthy, M. (1998) The Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. (2017) Spoken Grammar: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murphy, R. (2016) English Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Shin, D. (2007) The High Frequency of Spoken and Written English. New Zealand:
University of Victoria of Wellington. Vol.62.
Tao, H. & McCarthy, M. (2001) ‘Understanding non-restrictive which-clauses in spoken
English, which is not an easy thing,’ Language Sciences 23:651-77.
Timmis, I. (2002) Native-speaker norms and international English: a classroom view.
ELT Journal 56/3: 240–9.
Timmis, I. (2005) Towards a framework for teaching spoken grammar. ELT Journal
59/2: 117–25.
Yan, X. (2014) Differences between Spoken Language and Written Language and
Their Influence in English Teaching. Oversea English:126-7.
The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel
The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel
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The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel
Intel Corporation, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a multinational company founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. It deals in the business of semi-conductor chip making. The company invented the processors that are found in personal computers. It combines leading-edge capability of manufacturing with the capabilities of chip designs that are advanced. It is currently ranked as the 61st most valuable brand in the world (Uhlig, 2005).
Value proposition is a positioning statement which explains the benefits a company provides for who and how unique the company is in their provision. Intel’s value proposition is “simplify”. Currently, most, if not all of the companies, use technology. Intel’s role is to simplify. The company strives to simplify technology for their clients so that they can forget about technology and focus on their business ventures. It anticipates needs, prevents problems, and accelerates repairs should problems arise. The company constantly engages in activities and strategies on how to improve its processes. This is meant to streamline the experiences of their clients and to control their costs as a company that is involved with the competitive technology industry.
Intel’s key activity is the deliverance of IT-based solutions which include software services and platforms and at the same time encompasses various aspects of microprocessor designs. The company invented the x86 microprocessor series which is used in personal computers. This invention helped the company grow tremendously, both in terms of its capital base and in revenue. The company is also involved with the making of motherboard chipsets, integrated circuits and controllers, embedded processors, graphic chips, network interface controllers, and flash memory (Uhlig, 2005). The company has recently commenced research into electrical generation and transmission. It makes 3-D transistors which improve energy efficiency and performance. These transistors are currently being used in Intel’s 3rd generation core processors.
Intel had a market capitalization value of $140.84 billion as at 2013. The company has a vast data resource. It owned about 65 petabytes of data in 2013. This huge amount of data continues to increase at the rate of 40% per annum. The company also has over 100,000 employees and about 15,000 software engineers. It has acquired other globally recognized companies such as McAfee, Avago Technologies, Indisys, Basis, Omek Interactive, Aepona, Telmap, Silicon hive, and Mashery among others. Its expansion plans include building a microprocessor manufacturing plant in Arizona.
There are three factors that underlie the rise of Big Data. First of all, enabling access to faster, better, and cheaper storage facilities or services has made capturing and retention of large data amounts for long time periods easier (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). This price-performance improvement level has made users to assume that storage is free so they do not make an effort to delete data that they don’t need. Second, firms are wooed which surrounds data analytics and the chances of digging up vital information through data mining. Users have, therefore, been led into retaining data for longer periods regardless of the fact that the data’s analytical value may not be useful in the short run. Lastly, regulations require that even when data stops being useful for decision making purposes it should be stored for a particular duration. Sometimes case laws demand that data of an organization be stored indefinitely.
The storage of large amounts of data poses risks to global companies. Business continuity is a major risk in terms of the success of any business be it global or SME. It refers to the ability of a company to recover its important business activities with little or no long-term disputes. Another risk is compliance. It is the ability to satisfy minimum standards set for data retention, control, and access. Next we have the risk of losing intellectual property to competition or third parties who do not have the company’s best interest at heart. This can happen through cyber-attacks, access violation, or theft. Lastly, e-discovery is a major risk. It is the ability to search efficiently, locate and recover important information within a set time frame mostly due to a court order (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013).
Data governance at Intel needed to evolve so that it could be more accommodating and less restrictive of the desires of the users to use sources of information or data in ways that are nontraditional and new (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). This is the reason why the company employed the philosophy of Protect-to-Enable with regards to management of data. It took a different approach so that it could generate business value by maximizing on the use of its data and IT resources. This needed to be done within defined tolerable and quantifiable limits of risk. Moreover, the first era had mitigated only one risk form but increased other risk forms. There was need to lower risk portfolio and cost.
Intel IT raised awareness in its user community about the costs and value of its data using the Protect-to-Enable system (Tallon, Short, Harkins, Malcolm, 2013). The system takes into account client’s business needs and data classification. This process involves giving a user a cost that is associated with their usage of storage. Users are given questionnaires which finds the data’s criticality by assessing its business needs and determining whether or not it is important or if it is just business important. The outcomes form the basis for the data’s storage into the right tier.
References
Tallon, Paul P.; Short, James E.; Harkins, Malcolm W. (2013) The Evolution of Information Governance at Intel http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/92734280/evolution-information-governance-intelUhlig, R., (2005). Intel virtualization technology. Computer, 38(5), 48-56.
This paper is a topic review in the field of Management
Title: Topic Review
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Date: 29th June 2013
This paper is a topic review in the field of Management. The paper examines various topics in management; Organizational behavior, Theories of motivation and designing a motivating work environment. Organizational behavior creates an understanding of how workers tend to behave in an organization and what makes workers behave in certain ways. Through organizational behavior a management student will understand behavior by workers and how to approach behavioral changes from a manager’s perspective.
Theories of motivation highlight studies by management scholars on motivation of workers. Through theories of motivation a student is exposed to case studies conducted by different scholars on the field of workers motivation and conclusions from the studies. The topic develops a basis of understanding on what motivates workers.
Designing a motivating work environment is a topic that presents guidelines and knowledge to the students on how to motivate workers. This is important to a management student; it helps the student understand how to create a motivating environment that maximizes on workers’ productivity at the same time provides suitable working conditions.
Organizational Behavior
Through organization behavior we are introduced to the concept of organizational behavior by understanding what it is. The topic provides knowledge on why organizational behavior is important to every management student. Research methods for the field are also covered in this topic. Management students are guided through this topic on how to understand people in their workplaces.
Workers relations are well covered in the topic; relations between worker to worker and worker to manager. This provides human resource management skill to a management student who studies topic by understand different aspects regarding workers. The topic places the student as a future manager into a level of understanding challenges in communication and power between subordinates and superiors. This area of study reveals why groups are formed within an organization, the different types of groups in any organization and benefits of joining groups.
Organizational behavior matters because it covers everybody within the organization; an individual worker, a group formed by workers (whether formal or informal) and the entire organization. Studying this topic therefore proves to be important, not only to a future manager but also to a future employee who should have sound understanding of the organizational structure and how to interact with other colleagues at work.
Learning organizational behavior is not just common sense as many would think; the learning process opens up the mind of a student with case study to understand different practical situations that show how groups within an organization work. At the end of learning, a student is well equipped with terms used in research of organizational behavior and can conduct research to broaden their understanding of the topic. Trends and changes in organizational behavior and he modern workplace are well covered and learners gin knowledge on how to approach and deal with changes in organizational behavior.
Article Review:” Leadership and Organizational Behavior” organizational behavior is an area of study that equips managers and students of management with knowledge of groups and individuals in an organization. Organizational behavior plays a role in understanding and improving groups in an organization. The role of groups within an organization cannot be overlooked as they solve the social and intuitional needs of individuals in an organization. Workers who join groups or are part of a group are better placed to address challenges they face at work.
The two articles can be related by how they address the issue of need for workers to be in groups. Both articles provide a basis for understanding on the importance of groups in an organization and how individuals’ behavior affects the organization.
Theories of motivation
The topic highlights various theories of motivation that have been arrived at after studies by different scholars in the field of management. Each of the theory is stated and analyzed with an aim of providing knowledge to the learners. Theories of motivation as a topic cover the role of motivation in relation with workers performance, a classification of workers’ needs and the application of theories of motivation in the workplace.
Motivation is a push to work towards achievement of a set goal; where a worker is motivated, he/she works to the fullest of their ability under suitable conditions to achieve a set goal. Workers in an organization perform at their best having an understanding of what good results translate to. Motivation is an internal force where a person is under no external pressure to perform and is aware of the benefits of providing good results for him and the organization. This is two-way traffic; management should ensure that the workers are motivated to do their work to maximize on productivity and workers who are well motivated provide high quality services and performance to appreciate their sources of motivation.
There various factors that leads to the motivation of workers, these could be referred to as “a motivating workplace”. A motivating workplace is provided by the employer, employees also have a role in maintaining a motivating workplace. The employer must ensure that the environment and work conditions are suitable to all workers, address all situations that bring stress to workers within the workplace. On the other hand, once a conducive environment to work has been created by the employer, employees have a role to play too, by ensuring that they work to the interest of the organization. Employees should embrace diversity in culture and all aspects of the organization to ensure the well-being of other workers.
A look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provides a different approach to motivation. It provides stages of individual needs from bottom; physiological needs to the top, Self-actualization. A self-actualized individual, according to the theory, is one who has passed all stages and achieved all human wants and is at self-realization. Other human needs on the hierarchy are; safety needs social needs and self-esteem needs. The hierarchy forms a ladder, where an individual achieves one need after the other. You cannot achieve self-actualization if you haven’t fulfilled your self-esteem needs.
Article review: “The Hierarchy of Needs”. Physiological are basic human needs, shelter and food. These are the first level of needs and are also known as universal needs; every individual has to fulfill them. Safety needs include need for security and peace; individuals require a feeling of satisfaction in the levels of security. Social needs are needs of interaction, having people around you who love you. After the satisfaction of social needs, esteem needs open up; a person has the desire to feel appreciated and recognized by the society. Finally self-actualization, these are needs to achieve to the fullest of one’s potential and desire.
The article provides deeper understanding on theories of motivation, with a focus on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The relationship between human needs and motivation is highlighted; satisfaction of human needs beginning with basic needs is an important aspect in motivation of employees. The more needs an employee is able to satisfy, the more motivated he/she is. A worker who is at the self-actualization level is highly motivated and more productive.
Designing a motivating work environment
The topic provides ways of creating a favorable work environment which motivates the workers. It highlights the importance of a motivating work environment and provides the basic aspects of a favorable work environment. The concept of SMART goals is introduced in this topic.
There are various tools that a company should use to ensure that workers are motivated. The tools that help in developing a motivating work environment are obtained after understanding the theories of motivation. Creating and providing a motivating work environment should be the aim of every organization and can only be achieved when the management understands the employees and all theories of motivation.
Implementation of a motivating environment can be achieved using different strategies; job specialization, job rotation and career advancement. This ensures that an individual does not work in one position for a long time; this eliminates chances of low motivation brought about by monotony at work performing the same tasks every day.
Article: “Creating a motivating environment for work”. Understanding the employees is the first step to creating a motivating environment. Other than payment of good wages according to the labor market, understanding other factors that motivate employees enables an organization to create a motivating environment.
The article provides for factors that make a work place motivating. Understanding and taking care or individual interests and the interests of all groups in an organization create a motivating environment for work. Workers are more productive when they are well motivated.
Conclusion
Management is a broad field of study that exposes learners to different aspects of organizations. This course incorporates both practical and theory approaches to management; practical approach by providing case studies and theory approach by providing theories stated by other scholars in the field. A student is well equipped in management with skills and knowledge on how to approach different situations from a manager’s perspective.
References
Clark, R. M. (2009). Are We Having Fun Yet? Creating A Motivating Work Environment. Industrial and Commercial Training, 41(1), 43-46.
Conger, J. A., Kanungo, R. N., & Menon, S. T. (2000). Charismatic Leadership And Follower Effects. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21(7), 747-767.
Terry, G. R. (1977). Principles of management (7th ed.). Homewood, Ill.: R.D. Irwin.
Zalenski, R. J., & Raspa, R. (2006). Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs: A Framework For Achieving Human Potential In Hospice. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 9(5), 1120-1127.